White Castle L & S Co. - Lake Natchez/ Railroad

Requiem White Castle  L & S Co. &  Lake Natchez/ Railroad 

By Clifford J. LeGrange  with assistance from Mr. James  ‘Fry” Hymel, Rick Phillips, Ethan Joffrion, Jeremey Coupel and Ian Marsac, Jeanerette  L&S Co. Land Manager

In the late 1800s, the swamp east of  Lake  Natchez in  Iberville Parish, lying between the natural alluvial high ridge of the Mississippi  River between Bayou Plaquemine and Bayou Lafourche was a primeval place.  

Until the 1840’s the mysterious interior repulsed all but the most intrepid hunters and trappers.  

The interior of this  area remained mostly impenetrable until the era of Industrial Cypress logging in late  1890’s and  early 1900’s

Today, where once stood the virgin forests that had weathered the storms of ages and sheltered the ancient tribes and wildlife for centuries, are now but a cemetery of the days gone by.  Each silent stump a mute head-piece to the majestic giants that towered aloft and once lived there.

The history of an area or time period  does not stay alive on it’s own.  Left unattended history fades away from the memory of people. History buffs and local historians are always excited about learning the hidden history of things, places, and or events.  

White Castle was established as a town in 1882.

It is amazing how fast the history of something can be lost in a relatively short period of time.  

Between 1880 and 1924 the history of White Castle Lumber & Shingle Company intertwined.

Just ask someone from  White Castle, La. under 60  about the White Castle Lumber and Shingle Co. and the Lake Natchez Railroad.  

You will most likely will hear, yes,  I think they went out of business in the 1980s and I remember Mr. Leon Baudoin and Mr. Russel Hymel worked there for years. ( ie., White Castle Lumber Ands Supply)

Where did the name Bowie St. come from, and what was the origin of the name of the ‘50 ft road’? 

All firsthand informants are no longer alive to preserve such a historic period for Iberville Parish, White Castle, LA. and the Atchafalaya Basin.

William Cameron died unexpectedly on Feb 6, 1889.  

The White Castle Lumber Co. SawMill was a separate corporation in which William Cameron and later Wm. Cameron & Co owned the controlling interest.

Upon the death of Mr. Cameron the estate, amounting to over $4,000,000, remained intact in the possession of his legal heirs, his widow, and his children. 

R.H. Downman, the son-in-law of William Cameron took over as CEO

Wm. Cameron & Co., Inc., sold its interest in the White Castle mill to Mr. R. H. Downman and his associates in 1903.

The outside world knew little of Mr. Cameron’s charities of various kinds. They were extremely large and extended over the entire country.

Wm. Cameron was one of the pioneers, with uncharacteristic vision he saw the opportunity; he heard the call for lumber and he set about to answer that call.

The Texas & Pacific Railway - 1882

The Texas & Pacific Railway fostered the creation of new towns and gave rural people access to the efficiency and reliability that rail transportation offered. 

4-6-0 Ten-Wheeler steam locomotive No. 332

1900 – 1912

White Castle originated because of the railway station or junction at its site.

White Castle was established as a town in 1882, with the influx of people and businesses brought by the railroad and the logging industry in the cypress swamps of the area. 

The town of White Castle was on the Texas & Pacific railway seventy-four miles from New Orleans and right on the river. 

The railroad at White Castle passed within a rock throw from the Mississippi River. After evaluation by the Initial group of investors, it was determined that the site location would offer both rail and marine shipment of products.

The Texas & Pacific Railway fostered the creation of new towns and gave rural people access to the efficiency and reliability that rail transportation offered. 

White Castle was established as a town in 1882, with the influx of people and businesses brought by the railroad and the logging industry in the cypress swamps of the area. 

The railroad at White Castle passed within a rock throw from the Mississippi River. After evaluation by the Initial group of investors, it was determined that the site location would offer both rail and marine shipment of products.

Sawmill Towns: Work, Community Life, and Industrial Development

Capt. George M. Bowie, who was well and favorably known in all the southland as a successful manager in lumber interests. 

He was named the first business manager in the fall of 1890. Bowie Street in white castle is named for him.

The sawmill was the most prominent building of the White Castle plant.  At the time it was the pride of the area.  

Over the north end of the sawmill were the large letters "Cypress Queen." 

The sawmill was divided into a ground floor, subdeck, engine room, dynamo room, and mill deck.  There was a boiler house and engine room on the cast side. A series of lumber sheds for storage and shipping. 

The piling (storage) grounds for the lumber held 15,000,000 feet of lumber in stock. 

A track of 40-pound rail over three-quarters of a mile long ran from the plant to the river for convenience in handling lumber etc. and bringing back freight brought by boat from New Orleans. 

The White Castle plant had electric lights,  350 16-candlepower incandescent lamps and seven are lights.

Robert Henry Downman Era

Upon the death William Cameron’s death, on February 6, 1899. 

In a division of the estate. Mr. R.H. Downman the son-in-law took over William Cameron’s assets. Mr. Downman  had gone into the lumber firm of William Cameron & Co. as one of the working partners of that business

Downman in this division received majority ownership of sawmills Bowie Lumber Company, Limited; the Jeanerette Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, at Jeanerette, Louisiana; the Des Allemands Lumber Company, Limited, at Des Allemands, Louisiana; the Iberia Cypress Company, Limited, at New Iberia, Louisiana, and the White Castle Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, at White Castle, Louisiana. 

Some forestry  people said at the time  that R. Henry Downman had  backed into the Cypress Logging Industry Business

Downman proved to be an astute and savvy leader. Downman in a short period, within five years, had turned  W. Cameron's assets in Louisiana timber operations into  $8,000,000 (in 1905 dollars) in value. 

His cypress enterprises controlled some 160,000 acres (250 square miles), roughly one-half of it in the Atchafalaya Basin 

Robert Henry Downman was President and General Manager of all the businesses of those companies. 

After 10 years, Captain Bowie left the management of the plant in April 1901, and at that time R. H. Downman purchased 70% of the White Castle Lumber and Shingle Co. LTD.

Under R. H. Downman's his leadership, these companies formed the largest operation in cypress lumbering and were considered among the six largest lumbering operations in the world.

The White Castle Lumber Company was a full-service lumber company and sawmill from 1898 until its demise.

Logging by Steam

In the late 1880s mechanical steam-driven skidder machines were developed to pull the logs from the forest to a landing point. 

Two types of methods/systems were developed and used in the cypress logging era.

1. The Overhead skidder

The Overhead skidder (high lead logging) was a steam engine, with cable system, blocks, iron spools, and gears mounted on a railcar in conjunction with the logging railroad system to move the bucked logs to a loading point. 

The steam-powered rig could drag logs from the swamp up to 900 feet in all directions.  When this equipment was used to pull logs along the ground it was referred to as a “ground skidder”. 

When the system of steel cables and pulleys was rigged from trees allowing logs to be suspended and hauled out above the muddy swamp, it was called an overhead skidder. 

The overhead skidder steam engine which could be moved from place to place was placed on a logging railroad flatcar. 

The steam engine drove a drum around which there was a steel cable that would draw in the logs to a loading point where they could be loaded on a railcar and conveyed then to the sawmill by a locomotive.

2. Pull boat Operation 

Pull boat Operation was a steam engine, utilizing a cable system, blocks, iron spools, and gears as the overhead skidder except it was mounted on a Barge. Which was located in a natural river, bayou, or dredged canal.  

The logs would be dragged on the ground from the swamp interior into the canal (ground lead logging) and moved to a larger navigable stream where they were rafted and towed via a log raft/boom by steamboat through natural waterways to the sawmill

By the 1890s mechanical skidders and steam engines had developed enough technology to make it economically viable to harvest the timber from heretofore un-reachable areas such as the Atchafalaya   Swamp. 

The White Castle L&S used the Lidgerwood Overhead skidder (high lead logging) and a logging railroad system to move logs to the mill location.

The Lidgerwood skidders revolutionized the cypress swamping industry in the swamps of the Atchafalaya basin. Large cypress mills were not profitable until a large supply log could be depended upon.

Three Steam-driven Lidgerwood skidders were used by the company.

White Castel Lumber Operations - Artist illustration of Lidgerwood Overhead Skidders on Rail Car

Lidgerwood Manufacturing  Co., 1905, Logging by Steam,  https://www.oregonhistoryproject.org/articles/historical-records/lidgerwood-1913-cableway-skidder/

Working conditions around skidders were dangerous, and many injuries occurred to operators. 

Falling trees crushed loggers. Limbs snapped from a falling tree and ‘slingshotted’ back to strike loggers. 

A flagman signaled the skidder operator when a log was hooked on the line to be hauled to the track. 

The skidder whistle hooted twice to warn the men to watch for the flying log. You knew to stay away from a log on the skidder line. 

Mud and water in the swamp made quick movement by workers impossible. You couldn’t run; you worked in that mud. 

Death was an ever-present hazard in the logging operations. Six long blasts of the steam skidder whistle signaled a fatal accident. ‘That was a lonesome sound. 

White Castel Lumber Operations  - Artist illustration  of Lidgerwood Overhead Skidders on a PullBoat Barge

Lidgerwood Manufacturing  Co., 1905, Logging by Steam,  https://www.oregonhistoryproject.org/articles/historical-records/lidgerwood-1913-cableway-skidder

Horace Butters of Ludington, Michigan is credited with the invention of the steam-powered skidder engine. 

But William Baptist of New Orleans is credited with successfully improving and putting his system into operation for the Louisiana Cypress Lumber Company. 

Among his innovations was a rehaul system and a cable on the ground, rather than an overhead cableway utilizing spar and tail trees.

Overhead Skidders versus  Pullboats 

The overhead skidder is easily distinguished in two ways from a pull boat system.

While the overhead skidder made runs perpendicular to the cleared right-of-way cut for the railroad. i.e.., Logs are loaded on a railcar and moved by locomotive to the staging area or directly to the sawmill.

The Pullboat made fantail-shaped Runs to dredged access canals.

The overhead skidder was faster than pull boating … Logs could be transported at a rate of six hundred feet per minute. 

The logs did not dig deep ditches or run like a pull boat.

Both were damaging to the environment, but the overhead skidder was considered more damaging to the environment. 

Particularly to the young trees and undergrowth, beneath the log being transported.

Some Timber companies opted to use both the Overhead Skidder and Pull Boat depending on the conditions in the swamp.

The difference is shown in this photograph.

Pullboat's made fantail runs, from the main/central canals.  

While the overhead skidder made runs perpendicular to the cleared right-of-way cut for the railroad.

Lidgerwood Manufacturing  Co., 1905, Logging by Steam,  https://www.oregonhistoryproject.org/articles/historical-records/lidgerwood-1913-cableway-skidder/

In 1908 the portable steel tower was invented.  Loading and Skidding became much more proficient. 

It replaced the spar tree. The advantages of the portable tower were that the skidder stayed on the tracks, thus permitting much faster changing of sets, and assuring that all rigging was in proper alignment. 

With the skidder mounted to a railcar, only the rigging from the tail tree had to be removed to move the skidder.

 

The character of the country has absolutely no effect on the results secured. 

This skidder can maintain a capacity of 40,000 to 45,000 feet per day and if equipped with a slack puller it is believed that a daily capacity of 60,000 feet could be obtained.

Requiem of the  Atchafalaya Cypress  Swamp 

50-ton skidder pulling a 10-ton Log One End above the Swamp Floor

A 50-ton skidder could be heard a mile  away ...

“A 50-ton skidder pulling a 10-ton log one end above the swamp floor, thirty feet up into the air to 800-foot -heavy steel cable between the skidder tower and a back spar tree. 

At 500 feet per minute, it yanks the swinging logs to the railroad track, crashing them through the standing trees on the way. 

After thudding their load onto the log pile, the tongs race, open, and jump back down the cable into the swamp. Looking for more logs to haul out.  

The Choppers and the Sawyers, they lay the Timber low, The Swampers and the Skidders, they haul it To and Fro. "

Mud and Water and the Stumps of Trees. In every direction that was all there was. Bodies fell, but the trees died standing up."  (Josh Ritter)

How do you build a Logging Railroad In The Swamp?

 

In early the 1900’s it was a daunting task. Stories about gators, snakes, and mosquitos are not myths. 

How do you build a railroad in a boggy swamp …  first clear a right of way, then with a pile driver … literally build it as you go…

The Swampers - Backbone of the Cypress Logging Industry

The men exposed themselves daily to all sorts of dangers to make a living, Snakes,  Alligators, mosquitoes, spiders, fire, steam, mechanical cables and blocks, and summer heat.

The crew required for a Cableway Skidder is from seven to nine men in the regular skidding and loading gang and from two to three men in the rigging gang, or a total of nine to twelve men. 

Crews consisted of, fallers, sawyers, track layers, riggers, tong hookers, and signalmen. 

The riggers attached the logs to the cable which were attached to tall trees, the engine raised them, and they went swinging over the underbrush and/or water and dropped onto the cars. 

The loaders adjusted them and when the train was made up.

The train left the camp at  5:30 to the Slashing Area, (where the cutting of the trees was going on). 

The crews were made up of white and black workers.

Who worked from dawn until dusk.  They were paid $1.50 for a 10-hour day.

It was rugged dangerous work and as such ‘race’ issues just did not seem to be much of an issue, when you had to watch out for each other to survive.  

Main Line of the White Castle  Lumber &  Shingle  Co.  Railroad

White Castle L&S Company  Map from  Mill to Lake  Natchez

 

Objective evidence of the Main Line of the White Castle _Lake Natchez Railroad

 

Salvaged piece of Railroad iron found  Whaley  Canal and Texaco Pipeline… Ethan Joffrion Guide

Main  Line Railroad Overlayed  On  Modern Goggle  Earth  Satellite  View 2019

The total length of the main line is over 11 miles.

Rick Phillips and Cliff LeGrange observing a piece of railroad iron on Whaley Canal

The White Castle & Lake Natchez railroad had a total length all told, including the spurs in the yard and elsewhere, was more than  22 miles.

It is fair to say that it was the most expensive railroad that has ever been built to carry logs to a sawmill. Certainly the most expensive of any in the Atchafalaya Basin area. 

It took two years to complete it. Built on wood piles, running straight through the swamp.

Last log Cut 1913

 

The White Castle L &S Co. Sawmill cut out in 1913.

The White Castle L &S Co. Sawmill left White Castle as a resident business in 1924 and is mostly an absentee landowner.

White Castle was part of a thriving timber industry during the 1890 to 1915 period which ranked Louisiana in second place among lumber-producing states in the United States, behind the State of  Washington

It brought ample opportunities for employment to local people and many new entrepreneurs and business people moved to the area during the first three decades of the 20th century. 

Cut Out  & Get out Mind Set

A characteristic of The Cypress Logging Industry in The Atchafalaya Basin 1880 – 1930, was a “Cut Out and Get Out” mindset that developed over time. 

One early swamper described, "We just went in cutting down the swamp, tearing it up, and bringing the cypress out. The attitude was “cut out and get out,” we are here with all the heavy equipment and expense, we might as well cut everything we can make a board foot out of; we are not going to be coming back in here again". 

 It left large areas of denuded land, which in the case of White Castle L&S was turned into Agricultural Lands, ie., Sugar Cane.

By 1927, many other Atchafalaya sawmills had “cut out;” the mills were silenced, the final whistle had blown, and the mill laborers had come to seek employment elsewhere. 

Corporate Social Responsibility

The top-level managers who ran these companies were, for the most part, smart and well-educated. Yet one cannot help feeling that something fundamental was missing in the light of the ‘Cut Out and Get Out’ philosophy that they pursued.

There was some pushback at that time on the ‘Cut Out and Get Out’ philosophy.

Any industry which constitutes an important part of a community is under a real moral obligation to the community itself not to unnecessarily permit that industry to be destroyed” (Charles A. Scontras, historian and research associate for the Bureau of Labor Education). 

Mr. Harry Hardtner, a prominent lumberman in north Louisiana, authored a report for the Louisiana legislature in 1910 expressing the consequences of this approach that would not be understood for decades. 

“It is difficult to imagine the scale of the destruction of the once impressive cypress forests. The average citizen of Louisiana gained little from this exploitation. More than a thousand years of forest growth had been exhausted within a few decades, another Thousand would be required to replace it". 

In 1922, the then LA. Senator Hardtner campaigning for a Tax on natural resources severed from the soil or water” described the outcome this way: “No man has a right to use his property or waste or destroy it to the injury of his neighbor. 

The owner of a large tract of timber has no moral right nor should he have a legal right to waste or extravagantly utilize the forest for his enrichment by destroying the seeds of a commodity that could serve the future generations of the race".

The philosopher George Santayana, 1905, ‘The Life of Reason-the Phases of Human Progress’, “If we do not take time to reflect on our behavior, we may unwittingly repeat it”.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was not a serious issue in the early 1900’s.  The country was going through a building boom and it needed lumber to grow.

Today it appears to be a new philosophy developing among of the old Atchafalaya Cypress Logging Industry owners, i.e. White Castle Lumber & Shingle Co. and A. Wilbert’s & Sons and other Major Cypress Lumber Sawmill in Iberville Parish. 

New younger management has transitioned to managing their vast property holdings in Iberville Parish and the Atchafalaya Basin Heritage Area with a new mindset.

Land managers are continuously reviewing strategies that can keep forests resilient under multiple stressors so that they can continue to provide habitat for wildlife, clean air, clean water, and carbon storage, far into the future.

This includes fostering good stewardship of their land, protecting exceptional resources, promoting informed decisions, and strengthening the coordination with rural communities such as White Castle and Plaquemine.

It has been said we should be wary of ‘presentism’ – the judging people of another time by today's standards. Is it unfair to view how people reacted to situations around them within the needs for growth, constraints, and prejudices of the society they lived in?

In that time many of the leaders believed they were spreading economic success and progress for the USA by supporting the lumber needs of a growing nation

Captains of the Cypress Timber Industry to Oil & Gas Lessors 

The White Castle Lumber Co. shut down in 1913, whatever you want to call it, luck, know how to wait, providence, Oil, and Gas were discovered on the former cypress logging lands in the Atchafalaya Basin in the late 1920s.    

In the White Castle area preparation for the first well to be drilled was to open a right of way to the well location.  This right of way was made from Hwy 993 (Richland Road) to a point 5 miles to the west. 

The first producing wells in the Shell Oil White Castle Field were on White Castle L&S property.  

The first drop of oil produced from the White Castle Oil Field was sold on Nov. 9, 1929.  

A new chapter in land management was established.  Many workers from the timber industry moved to jobs in the Oil & Gas Business. 

Particularly the men with experience working with the steam boilers of log skidders found work easily.  The early oil rigs used steam boilers to run the Drilling Rigs. 

Before Oil& Gas companies came to Iberville parish, there were not many jobs that paid the salaries or provided the benefits the Oil and Gas industry did.  

The logging companies paid $1.50 a day during the boom years of White Castle L&S.  

The first  Shell Oil workers on drilling rigs in the mid 1930’s  were paid 1.25 an hour! 

Rough Necks on Shell rig # 4 in White Castle Field

C 1939. On the left is G.G. Roberson, the father-in-law of Mr. Fry Hymel who was killed in an oil field accident.

Hunting Leases –

Modern hunting leases first caught on in the southern United States in the 1950s. 

In the  Atchafalaya Basin area, the large landowners resisted leasing their land for hunting. The local folks hunted the land free and the landowners tolerated trespassing on their lands because that’s the way it was back in the day. 

 

After all the first full-time game warden in Iberville Parish was in the mid  1950’s. 

The area around the  White Castle Canal began to see many more fishermen and sport hunters i.e., with good jobs, money to spend, and as a result of an affluent America. 

They were armed with the latest high tech outboard motors boats and equipment  that many rural  folks  could not afford

Formation of White Castle Hunting Club

The White Castle Hunting Club was the first official chartered hunting club in Iberville Parish.

It is proven that Hunting leases can provide a viable and sustainable source of supplemental income for landowners. 

In this setup, the hunter (or group of hunters) typically pay a fee and has exclusive use of the property during all hunting seasons.

Many hunters believe they achieve a richer fair-chase hunting experience on leased land because there are rules and it requires discipline to follow them.  

Rogue hunters are usually weeded out qu It ickly.  

That is why hunters with modest incomes will save up for the yearly dues to belong to a hunting club.  

Recently the White Castle Hunting Club went to the new White Castle Lumber Land Manager and told them that they were in danger of folding up as a hunting Club.  

Their dues were higher than ever and the Landowner’s rule of not allowing hunting with dogs had reduced the deer being taken by hunters. 

The swamp was staying wetter every year and the deer were retreating to the wetter areas and were 100 % nocturnal except for the rut. 

Hunters were simply giving it up.

After producing their records that kill had been going down for over 10 years, despite not shooting does.

The new land manager agreed with their data and said they could go back to hunting over dogs during the state-regulated dog season.

He offered to give the hunting club Alligator tags to supplement their paying for their lease.

Part of strengthening the coordination with rural communities such as White Castle and Plaquemine.